Shoot the Breeze
by Astralis
Summary: Nick and Warrick talk. NS, WC.


**DISCLAIMER:** The usual. They're not mine.

* * *

It's noisy in the bar. It's kind of sleazy too; the kind of place their girlfriends wouldn't let them go if they had any say in the matter. It's a guys' night like the two of them haven't had in far too long. The music seems louder than it used to, and words are a bit harder to come by, so for a while they just stare into their glasses and around the bar, sometimes catching each other's eye.

"So," says Warrick, finally, picking up his almost empty glass and swirling the last drops of beer around the bottom, "how're things with you and Sara?"

Nick smiles - and it's an embarrassed kind of smile - and says, "Sara, man, she's _Sara_..." There's a lot of other things he could say, but he doesn't. "It's pretty good."

Warrick shakes his head, slowly. "Man, I never thought, you know, you and Sara..."

"Yeah," says Nick. "But I mean, you and Catherine..."

"Yeah. Well. Just kind of happened, you know."

Nick nods, because he does know. "Yeah. What about you and Catherine? And Lindsey?"

"Cat's good. Lindsey, she's, she's a kid, you know? She's had a rough time, but at least she had her Mom to herself, and then I come on the scene... it's tough for her, you know?"

"But what about you? I mean, Catherine's one thing, but... guess I'm not used to women with kids."

"It's weird. But, you know, they're a package deal." Warrick smiles, just enough for Nick to notice. "You know, I always wanted kids, and Lindsey's pretty neat. Realistically Cat and I will never have kids together, so... " He beckons the barman over and orders two more beers.

"And you don't mind that?"

"I mind, but what can I do? I love Lindsey." Warrick takes a mouthful of beer. "So. Sara..."

"Yeah."

"So, spill."

Nick doesn't really need much encouragement to talk about Sara, but it's forming coherent sentences that's the problem. "She needed a friend, man."

Warrick raises an eyebrow. "Some friend."

"Okay, so it turned into more than that... but she's special, you know?"

"Hey, I'm not thinking about _Sara_ like that."

"Yeah, well, _I_ think she's special."

"I noticed," says Warrick dryly.

Nick's a bit embarrassed; this feels like being a teenager all over again. He likes having the chance to talk about Sara, though. He's tried to describe her to one of his sisters, but Jo just didn't seem to get it, didn't seem to understand what Sara was really like. Looking at Warrick now Nick wonders if his friend will understand, and decides that it doesn't really matter, because the only way he understands Warrick and Catherine is in the ways he can recognise himself and Sara in their story. It's like working a case: he can lay out the evidence and look at it and come to a conclusion, but he doesn't have to understand, doesn't have to experience what it was like to be involved in it. He shakes his head. "I love her." He's a little bit nervous about making this admission, but Warrick was honest with him about the kids thing. He realises that after Sara and his sister Jo, he trusts Warrick more than anyone else in the world.

Warrick grins. "I figured that out for myself."

"How obvious?" Nick frowns and thinks of Grissom.

"To me? Man, I know you. I know Sara. And this whole thing? I know how it feels. I've been there. I _am_ there."

Nick's smile is sheepish "Yeah. True."

"To anyone else?" Warrick looks thoughtful. "You worried about anyone in particular?"

Nick hesitates before he answers. "Grissom."

"Figures. Griss, you know, I don't know what he knows. Don't think anyone does. He's a mystery."

"Yeah. Well." Grissom is a bit of a sore spot for Nick; he wakes up sometimes and wonders if he's Sara's second choice. Once he asked her, and she thought about it, looking worried, and finally said he was second _chronologically_, and pointed out that she'd known Grissom for years longer than she'd known Nick. He accepts this response because he's not likely to get another one.

"Don't worry about him. She's with you for a reason, you know."

"I know." Nick takes a mouthful of beer gratefully. "Still can't quite believe it, you know?"

"Oh, _yeah_. I know how that feels."

They drink their beers listening to the noise of the bar. Nick wants to try to explain what it's like being with Sara. He wants to explain how sometimes he wants to just hold her and sit with her in a corner to stop the world from hurting her; and how sometimes rages silently inside himself because he can't just make it all better for her. He wants the words to describe the way she looks as she wakes up, and how it feels to watch television with her head warm in his lap, and how her hair feels when he runs his fingers through it. He wants to able to describe what it means to fight with her, when it seems like they have such wildly clashing opinions that they can never be reconciled, and he despairs because of the passion and stubborness he loves so much at other times, and he wishes he could explain the relief he feels when they make up.

As he thinks about, he realises that he doesn't want to be able to tell this all to Warrick. He wants the words so he can tell it to himself when he doesn't believe it's real, in the times when he's not with her and he has sudden doubts. For the most part he loves the feelings Sara inspires in him, but they're a little intense, a little incomprehendible. If he had the words maybe he could look at them objectively, understand them on an intellectual level.

They drain the last of the beer from their glasses and look at each other. "I'd better get home," says Warrick. "I promised Cat - "

"Yeah," says Nick, understanding. "I told Sara - "

They smile at each other, walk out into the morning sunlight, and go home.

* * *

**THE END**


End file.
